Artists Turn Plastic Waste Into Beautiful Art

The plastic waste found in our oceans and landfills doesn’t have to be a blight on the landscape – it can be beautiful too. The Convergence Exhibition, which opened last month at the Lumenhouse in Brooklyn, New York, unveils the peculiar beauty that is hidden in our plastic trash.

The artists’ works are striking: Anne Percoco’s piece, Indra’s Cloud, is a series of hundreds of plastic containers bundled up into something that resembles a prickly cloud. “There was a yoga group staying in the same guesthouse as me, in Vrindavan, India,” Percoco explained to Art Threat. “Over the course of a month, they used all these bottles and they piled up in the hallways. I just collected them.”

Other works on display include Marrus Orthocanna (jellyfish-like plastic containers strung together), Pink Project Table (a collection of pink plastic products), and Catchment (a sculpture made out of found plastic shapes.

The idea for Convergence came to curator Mariko Tanaka as a result of her work with Project Vortex, an undertaking which repurposes plastics that are engulfing the planet’s oceans. All members of the Convergence Exhibition are, in fact, members of the project.

Want to check out Convergence? It will be on display every weekend until December 12.